In 1871, newly freed slaves established the community of Tamina—then called “Tammany”—north of Houston, near the rich timber lands of Montgomery County. Located in proximity to the just-completed railroad from Conroe to Houston, the community benefited from the burgeoning local lumber industry and available transportation. The residents built homes, churches, a one-room school, and a general store.Over time, urban growth has had a powerful impact on Tamina. The sprawling communitie...

One woman's struggle to restore an old slave cemetery uncovers centuries-old racismWhen China Galland visited her childhood hometown in east Texas, she learned of an unmarked cemetery for slaves-Love Cemetery. Her ensuing quest to restore and reclaim the cemetary unearths racial wounds that have never completely healed. Research becomes activism as she organizes a grassroots, interracial committee, made up of local religious leaders and lay people, to work on restoring community ac...

The odds were stacked against her in just about every possible way, but thousands and thousands of people called her their leader. Why? Because they could not escape the power of the Law of Respect.

This “viscerally powerful . . . compilation of firsthand accounts of the Jim Crow era” won the Lillian Smith Book Award and the Carey McWilliams Award (Publisher’s Weekly, starred review).Based on interviews collected by the Behind the Veil Oral History Project at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, this remarkable book presents for the first time the most extensive oral history ever compiled of African American life under segregation.

Dawnland Voices calls attention to the little-known but extraordinarily rich literary traditions of New England’s Native Americans. This pathbreaking anthology includes both classic and contemporary literary works from ten New England indigenous nations: the Abenaki, Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, Mohegan, Narragansett, Nipmuc, Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Schaghticoke, and Wampanoag.Through literary collaboration and recovery, Siobhan Senier and Native tribal historians and scholars hav...

This book is for those Louisiana slaves (and all the American slaves) whose labor was forced without regard to their humanity, even further, with unrestrained disrespect for their existence. This book is a tribute to the indigenous (originated in or native to the region) Black people of Northeast Louisiana, those folk who were reared in the rural areas, villages, and small towns; who worked on the farms and plantations; sharecropped; cleared all the land; tended all the livestock; planted ...

A history of independent African American settlements in Texas during the Jim Crow era, featuring historical and contemporary photographs.In the decades following the Civil War, nearly a quarter of African Americans achieved a remarkable victory—they got their own land. While other ex-slaves and many poor whites became trapped in the exploitative sharecropping system, these independence-seeking individuals settled on pockets of unclaimed land that had been deemed to...

All across America, ordinary people are going out of their way to help one another and make our country a better place. Unheralded, unrecognized, and often taken for granted, these citizens continue their good deeds, happy just to make a difference.Hometown Heroes tells the stories of fifty such people from all over America, including Moody, Alabama, Ellisville, Illinois, and Lander, Wyoming. Spanning ages fourteen to ninety-three, the heroes inside this book show that it'...

This story is true, with very minimal alterations. Some of the names have been changed for lack of permissive authority. Any names not changed by the author are either deceased or a party to the motivating factor of this writing. For many ill-spent years weve contemplated on gathering enough information along with the discipline necessary to put together the proper words and feelings into action. The following pages are not meant for the sole purpose of complacency. However, we do hope it ...

Having been born on April Fools Day, author Earl B. Russell likes to imagine that in an early sign of his precocious nature, the doctor dried him off, held him up for his mother to see, and then listened as the baby looked at his mother and exclaimed, April Fool! Russells mother knew he was a problem child right off the bat. At first glance, his older brother told everyone Russell would never amount to anythingso much for making a good first impression! As his life began in a rural Tenness...

Though a school teacher by profession and proud of it, Clara Luper courageously began early in her career a life-long battle against racism. She made local and national news in 1958 when she organized a small group of teenagers (including her own children) and led them in a sit-in an Oklahoma City drugstore diner which did not serve Black people. They were mocked and harassed and threatened, but they came back day after day until the store changed its policy. Other demonstrations and succe...

The Calgary Stampede is home to many cows and bulls who work hard all summer to entertain tourists. Eva loves watching her mother give rides to children. When Eva learns that her mother is being paid much less than the bulls, she makes her voice heard. Will rallying the community draw enough attention from City Stall to  change this unfair practice?